Reminders
by Brochelle
Summary: She says it for a reason. She doesn't know if it's for herself, or for the others. Maybe even both. Thirty-minute quick write. Read and review if you don't mind.


It was a reminder.

"_Reloading_," Zoey whispered, faintly aware of  
the clouded breath rising from her mouth, as she shoved shells into the  
pump-action shotgun. Before she dared cock the gun, she raised her head  
and scanned the darkened road ahead, searching in vain for the shifting,  
stumbling forms of the undead. Nothing emerged out of the distant mist,  
however, nor tripped into the warm, glowing circle of light cast by the  
fire on the other side of the street. The only sound now - following  
that bloody, disgusting, heart-pounding firefight - was the sound of  
silence, punctuated occasionally by a nasally sniff from Louis'  
direction (in the doorway), a shuffle of a leather vest (behind her, to  
the left, next to the fallen pickup truck), or the rasping smoker's  
cough beside her. Glancing to Bill, she swallowed.

She racked the shell into the barrel.

The heavy _clunk_ wasn't loud. It wasn't like the thunderous blast the  
shotgun was capable of. But it garnered the same effect - a pounding  
heartbeat and a sharp intake of the chilled night air - as if she'd  
pulled the trigger.

She never knew what was listening, just around the  
corner.

_Better safe than sorry_.

Zoey rested the stock of the gun against her shoulder, relaxing into a  
hunched position rather than the stiff-backed, ready-at-any-moment  
stance she'd held for the past five minutes while she reloaded the  
shotgun. Her legs' muscles, already aching from the heart-pounding escape from the Tank mere minutes ago, screamed in silent protest. Zoey answered them with a sigh of  
relief.

A loaded shotgun was a prayer. She only had to wait now.

"Why do you bother with that?"

The Infected didn't talk in that tone. Soft, raspy, curious - and best of all, _human_.  
Surprisingly, her heart didn't leap into her throat as she expected  
it to, which was fortunate, since that could have led her to make some very rash decisions.

Zoey tilted her head, directing her eyes at Bill, but not willing to  
risk turning away from the lit road ahead. She offered him a shrug,  
hoping he would see it. "I don't know. Just do."

A cough of a laugh. "Do you really need to wig out every time you load a shotgun?"

Zoey realized he was referring to her overt, cautionary tactics. She  
liked to be careful - the careful ones lived longer. This wasn't an  
action flick with tough guys and big guns.

She allowed herself a glance over the shoulder, taking in the sight  
of Louis and Francis quietly comparing firearms. A quick grin leaped to  
her mouth.

Well, maybe it was a little bit like an action flick.

But her point still stood. If they died, the omnipresent army wasn't there to  
back them up. There was no one else but them. All that mattered was  
surviving. And if it took weeks to get to safety? So be it. As long as  
she wasn't in _pieces _when she got there.

"Nah," she muttered. She turned back to face the road ahead. Peering  
down the barrel, she scanned the fog - still nothing. Maybe it was safe  
to move forward again. "We went through hell back there. Rather not  
rinse and repeat, y'know?"

Bill snorted. "Hell ain't the word for it, Zoey."

She could only sigh. "Yeah, well, I'm in the presence of children. Rather not curse _too _loudly. Besides. You know what I mean."

The veteran slowly pivoted on his heels, twisting around to look at the two  
men behind them. Even though their murmurs were indistinguishable at  
best, it was obvious Francis was trying to show off his gun knowledge,  
while Louis' expression was a little on the disbelieving side. Shaking  
his head, Bill turned around, his cold, hardened eyes repeating the same  
action Zoey's soft, worried eyes had been a moment before. He shifted  
the burning cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other, shaking  
off thick clumps of ash in the process. Smoke rose from the glowing, burning, vivid orange tip  
and rose above them, fading into the cloudy sky.

"Well, what about the 'reloading' thing?" Bill asked. "You say that practically every five seconds."

"For one," Zoey replied quietly, "I'm cautious. If I don't have an Infected up in my face, I like to reload while I can."

"What's Reason Number Two?"

A sigh escaped her lips. "Just to make sure I'm still alive."

Her words intermingled with the cigarette's smoke, hesitating in the  
air before being swept away by a slight breeze. Zoey shivered in her  
sweatshirt, gripping the shotgun tightly, as if that would drive away  
the cold. It didn't.

Bill was silent. Zoey glanced at him sideways and noticed his eyes  
were cast downward, staring at the scarred barrel of his hunting rifle.  
His eyes were… different. They looked thoughtful, which was a spitting  
distance away from that dangerous look he got when he was pissed. Who  
knew if-

"That's a good tactic."

Zoey stared at him, unafraid of the veteran's piercing gaze when his eyes met hers.

"It is. Sayin' that? Like taking a headcount, in a way. Lets us know  
you're still around." He nodded curtly. Gruffly, he mumbled, "Make sure  
you keep doing that. That's… that's a good tactic."

A triumphant smile sprang to Zoey's lips unbidden. It meant something  
to have an aged war hero telling her she had good tactics.

_That was good for the ego._

"Guys, we got a problem."

Zoey nearly leaped out of her skin when Louis' worried voice came from mere inches behind her, as opposed to where she'd thought Louis actually was - a couple feet beyond them. Heart in her throat, Zoey jumped to her feet and shouldered her shotgun, quickly checking all angles - _up the street, behind them, down that alley, up on the roof top, in the shadows, under that tree _- but when no danger presented itself, she relaxed. Turning to Louis, she whispered furtively, "_What!_"

Louis merely pointed.

Following his finger, Zoey looked down the road and once again, for  
the millionth time that night, stared into the fog. Except now there  
were _things _there: dark, hunched forms, bloated, trundling forms, mingling and shifting forms, anything _and everything _that went bump in the night.

"They're coming," Zoey hissed. Her heart began to pound against her ribcage. Every instinct screamed _get out - get out NOW _- but there was nowhere to run.

A flash of light drew her attention, pulling her gaze to her right -  
Bill uncapping a pipe bomb, the hissing flare lighting up like a  
neon sign pointing out their position. Terrified, Zoey looked back to the horde,  
and found dozens of the Infected already stumbling in their direction.

"_PIPE BOMB!_" Bill shouted, and chucked the explosive into the midst of the nearing horde.

The Infected scrambled like hungry crows around a dying man, fighting  
to catch the cylindrical object as it flashed and beeped, counting down  
until the moment it-

-It exploded, catching at least thirty Infected in the blast,  
reducing their numbers into clouds of bloody mist and chunks of meat and  
bone. The others - _at least fifty more _- screamed and roared  
as they sprinted through the clouds, mouths open wide and inhaling the  
ichor of their brothers, getting closer and closer by the instant.

"Open fire!" Francis hollered, and all four survivors happily obliged.

Zoey blasted through the first six or seven to get closest, her  
jittery hands forcing her to spray and pray. Several shots hopelessly  
missed the Infected, catching them in the arms and sides _but not the head_,  
and within seconds her gun clipped empty. She fumbled for extra shotgun  
shells and reloaded, cocking the gun and shouldering it in time  
to blast away the first zombie to come within throwing distance.

"Reloading!" she barked, racking a shell into the barrel and firing, exploding the head of the nearest zombie.

_Still here. Still breathing._


End file.
